Privacy Policy Machine vision experts in North America
25 years onsite with global technology leadership
By leveraging advanced data capture technologies, businesses can automate repetitive tasks, streamline processes, and reduce manual errors. Automation is critical for companies facing rising cost pressures and the need to meet growing end customer demands for precision and transparency. To enable operations and engineering specialists to identify further areas of optimization, our machine vision experts have been at their side in North America for decades.
Data capturing enables businesses to gain valuable insights into their operations. For example, in logistics, automated data capture systems can track parcels in real-time, ensuring transparent and reliable delivery processes. This transparency builds trust and enables insights on the package flow. Damaged parcels or incoming and outgoing goods can be tracked within the system. Moreover, the ability to analyze large volumes of data allows companies to identify inefficiencies, predict trends, and make informed decisions that enhance service quality and operational performance.
Costs are rising everywhere. Every single mistake that is made in the processing of goods costs money to either fix or must be compensated for elsewhere. The big advantage of automation technology is not only that processes run faster and more error-free, but also that it creates more data transparency and allows users to know where errors occur and money is wasted.”
As end customers increasingly demand high-quality services and the ability to track their interactions, businesses must respond with precision and reliability. Data capturing technologies provide the tools needed to meet these expectations, offering a competitive edge through enhanced decision-making, optimized processes, and improved customer satisfaction. In essence, data capture is not just about collecting information—it's about transforming that information into actionable insights that drive business success.
In order to meet these rigorous market demands, experience, specialist knowledge, and next-level technologies are required.
Global experience - the basis for process automation
Wayne Pugh has been working in the machine vision industry for 25 years, and today he is Vice President for Partner Management. His journey is a testament to VITRONIC's pioneering spirit. His first visit to a US customer site in 1999 was filled with both challenges and opportunities. The need: A solution for automating a logistics center with an unprecedented throughput of parcels.
Colleagues came over with some experience from a smaller project in Frankfurt, Germany. But barcode reading was still unknown at most warehouses and distribution centers. In North America, we had the opportunity to prove our expertise by scaling up the technology to one of the biggest automation projects still today"
At that time, Wayne and his colleagues spent hours finding the best way of integrating the technology into an existing logistics center, even installing in the snow in the middle of Kentucky. The team came up with a groundbreaking milestone for the logistics industry in 1999:
By automatically recording data and integrating it into connected systems, they ensured seamless documentation. However, a necessary requirement was that all information on the packages, such as barcodes, 2D codes and plain text, was reliably recognized. Therefore, another challenge to overcome was the reliable reading of plain text on address labels and other printed information. Since laser scanners were not capable of this, only a camera-based solution was available.
At this point, the market had reached a stage where more and more handling of shipments was required. At the same time, however, it cost a lot of staff to ensure this. To be able to automate these critical processes together with the customer, close cooperation on-site was essential. The result was impressive: hundreds of cameras replaced rework stations and provided a blueprint for logistics centers worldwide to adapt the concept.”
This is one of the drivers for VITRONIC experts still today: Working side by side with the customer, our colleagues examine new ways for optimizing process flows, potential savings during shipment processing, as well as data transparency in post-processing.
Development of markets with exchange of industrial expertise
As VITRONIC expanded, more colleagues joined the team in North America and across the globe, and more group companies were established. This growth brought together a diverse pool of knowledge from various markets and project requirements. The collective expertise of the global teams began to address complex challenges in innovative ways –not only in the logistics industries.
In a strategic partnership in Mexico, VITRONIC introduced Weldloop, an innovative digital tool designed to optimize welding processes in the automotive market. This new product development responded to the industry's need for more efficient and precise welding, leveraging linked data to enhance quality control. Weldloop enables data-driven optimization of welding and inspection processes and reduces manual operations. Learning from previous machine vision projects and technologies from other industries, a team of global experts like Wayne transferred the knowledge and designed the new software with customer insights from Mexico.
Proximity to customers and partners has proven to be the key to successful projects and product developments. In the Weldloop example, we were close to the customer's processes thanks to our presence in Mexico, and we recognized that there was potential for further optimization in the welding line. Just like the opportunity for optimizing logistics processes was recognized a few decades ago.”
Today, VITRONIC North America, with offices in US and Mexico, leads all activities in North America for the global technology leader. Together with 1,400 colleagues across the world, their goal is to enable their partners for the best end-customer service quality possible.
Turning expertise into innovation
Drawing on 40 years of global project experience and 25 years of localized expertise in North America, we transform extensive knowledge into groundbreaking innovations that drive customer success across various industries. Our deep understanding of market dynamics and customer needs enables us to deliver tailored solutions that provide more data, greater insights, and enhanced optimization.
